Gigot (leg-of-mutton) sleeve dress, Eastport, ca. 1837
Item 105390 info
Maine Historical Society
Likely worn by Harriet Lamphrey Leavitt (1802-1840), this brown printed cotton dress demonstrates the gigot sleeve during the trend’s final years. By 1837, the gigot puffs deflated or moved to the lower arm, a look that lingered and competed with the 1840s straight sleeve style. A pointed waist bodice helps date the dress closer to 1840. The dress may be worn with or without its matching pereline (capelet).
As of 2022, cotton dresses are less prevalent in the Maine Historical Society collection, perhaps not surviving after years of wear or updating. Despite being less represented, cotton was an extremely important fabric for Maine fashion during the 1830s.
The American South dramatically increased cotton production during the period, supplying both national and international markets. Maine author Joseph Ingraham Holt (1809-1860) famously described the influence of cotton for Northern markets and its reliance on the institution of slavery in his in his work Southwest by a Yankee published in 1835.
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